March 25, 2010 - Provo » After adopting a ban on smoking in public parks, the Utah County Health Department is turning its attention to tobacco lozenges.

Kari Schmidt, with the department's promotions division, said the department will work on a public-education campaign targeting dissolvable tobacco products, such as Camel Orbs. The products look like lozenges, breath strips or candy sticks, yet contain up to three times the amount of nicotine found in a cigarette.

Schmidt told the Utah County Board of Health this week that an effort to regulate the products, which are packaged like candy or mints, failed to pass the legislature.

Health officials say the products are the tobacco industry's latest attempt to hook people as smoking itself becomes restricted or socially unacceptable. The new products, Schmidt said, appear to be targeted at youth.

Aside from having some of the same health risks and addictive qualities of cigarettes, the lozenges also pose a threat to infants and toddlers who may mistake them for candy, Schmidt said. She said five sticks contain enough nicotine to kill a 1-year-old child. (Poison Control Centers - Camel Dissolvables - Nicotine Toxicity..)

Schmidt passed out containers of the lozenges to give board members a chance to see them. "These don't smell like tobacco," said Utah County Commissioner Gary J. Anderson, after sniffing some of the lozenges. Products look like Tic Tacs